Dan Snow's History Hit

Ray Victor is a lifelong New Yorker and tour guide from Queens. He remembers 11th of September 2001 vividly, when hijacked planes were flown into the World Trade Centre towers in New York City, the Pentagon in Virginia, and a site in Pennsylvania. Thousands were killed and injured. Ray remembers the missing posters, the hole that was left in the heart of the city, the destruction but also the humanity and the way his city came together.

In this episode, Dan visits Ground Zero with Ray as he shares personal stories and lesser-known facts about what happened that day and in the aftermath. They stop by the church where the NYFD coordinated their rescue, the bank where a little-known water rescue took place from Battery Park in which over half a million people were evacuated from the chaos by a flotilla of civilian vessels that rushed to their aid, a rescue bigger than Dunkirk. They finish at the reflection pools where the towers once stood and reflect on how this great city weathered the worst terror attack in history.

Ray offers a 9/11 History tour from ExperienceFirst. To find out more follow ExperienceFirst | Make the Most of Your Visit

This episode was produced by Mariana Des Forges, the audio editor was Dougal Patmore.

If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe to History Hit today!

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Malta is located in the Mediterranean sea just beyond Sicily, between Europe and Africa; its warm climate and beautiful islands make it a perfect holiday destination. But in World War Two, the Islands’ strategic location made it centre stage in the theatre of war in the Mediterranean: a key stronghold from which the Allies could sustain their North African campaign and from which they could launch their eventual attack on mainland Italy.

Museum curator Liam Gauci and Keith Gatt from Heritage Malta take Dan through the country's rich wartime history and shed light on how the country and its people survived some of the most intense bombing of the war, as the Axis resolved to bomb or starve Malta into submission, by attacking its ports, towns, cities, and Allied shipping supplying the island. 

This episode was sponsored by Visit Malta. Find out more about Malta's rich history here: https://www.visitmalta.com/en/history-of-malta-and-gozo/

This episode was produced by Mariana Des Forges, the audio editor was Dougal Patmore.

If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe to History Hit today!

To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As a mark of respect and remembrance to the late Queen Elizabeth II, we've chosen to focus on Her Majesty's personal history as a veteran of the Second World War.

For this episode, James is joined by Tessa Dunlop to learn more about how the inspirational, dedicated, and devoted monarch that was Elizabeth II went from a young girl living through the blitz, to serving as a second subaltern in the all-female Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) by the end of WW2.

Note: This episode was recorded before the announcement of Queen Elizabeth II's death.

Edited by Aidan Lonergan.

Listen to Elizabeth II: The Making of the Queen.

If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe to History Hit today!

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Queen Elizabeth II has died after 70 years on the British throne. Born in April 1926, Elizabeth Windsor became heir apparent, aged 10, when her uncle Edward VIII abdicated and her father George VI became king. In 1947 – She married navy lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, a Greek Prince, at London’s Westminster Abbey before being crowned there in 1953 in the world’s first televised coronation. In this reflection of her life and illustrious reign, Dan is joined by historian Professor Kate Williams to look at The Queen’s childhood, adolescence in WWII and the upbringing that made her a monarch admired around the world.

Producer: Charlotte Long

Audio editor: Dougal Patmore

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What do you get when you bring together five top historians in a room with bottles of Prosecco to debate Elizabeth I on screen? History with the gloves off - our first Not Just the Tudors Lates! 

Taking as her starting point the new series Becoming Elizabeth - now streaming on STARZ - Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Dr Joanne Paul, Jessie Childs, Alex von Tunzelmann and Professor Sarah Churchwell to explore how television and films have depicted the year 1547 when - following the death of Henry VIII - a complex web of relationships determined the course of British history. 

*WARNING! There is some strong language in this episode*

The Senior Producer was Elena Guthrie. It was edited and produced by Rob Weinberg. Audio extracts from Becoming Elizabeth courtesy of STARZ.

If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe to History Hit today!

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Why are humans the only species to have escaped – only very recently – the subsistence trap, allowing us to enjoy a standard of living that vastly exceeds all others? And why have we progressed so unequally around the world?

Professor Oded Galor is an economist and the founding thinker behind Unified Growth Theory, which seeks to uncover the fundamental causes of development, prosperity and inequality over the entire span of human history. Oded joins Dan on the podcast to offer an explanation of the progress that has taken place over the past two hundred years and that has allowed the human species to progress with great disparity.

This episode was produced by Hannah Ward, the audio editor was Dougal Patmore.

If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe to History Hit today!

To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

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For millennia, people have obsessed over questions about the nature of matter in our universe. Then, by the turn of the twentieth century, we believed we had answered everything. Our understanding of matter was finally complete. But an unprecedented outburst of scientific discovery was about to change the course of history...

Dr Suzie Sheehy is an accelerator physicist, academic and science communicator. Suzie joins Dan to introduce us to the people who staged ground-breaking experiments— from the serendipitous discovery of X-rays in a German lab to the race to split open the atomic nucleus, Suzie reminds us of the thrilling discoveries that have shaped our lives.

This episode was produced by Hannah Ward, the audio editor was Dougal Patmore.

If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe to History Hit today!

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The mechanised warfare of the First World War brought unprecedented new levels of firepower and destruction to the battlefield and with it horrific new injuries. Advances in medicine also meant that soldiers were surviving injuries that previously would have been fatal. Many of these men were left with horrific, disfiguring facial injuries which carried with them not just a physical trauma but a social stigma as well. One man made it his mission to help them and in the process developed many of the techniques that formed the basis of plastic surgery as we know it today.

Dr Lindsey Fitzharris joined Dan on stage at the Chalke Valley History Festival to talk about the extraordinary career of the pioneering plastic surgeon Harold Gillies. They discuss the realities of combat injuries, how Gillies established the first hospitals dedicated entirely to facial reconstruction and the profound impact he had on the lives of his patients.

Warning: This episode contains discussions of surgery and battlefield injury.

This episode was produced by Mariana Des Forges, the audio editor was Dougal Patmore.

If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe to History Hit today!

To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

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In the early hours of September 2, 1666, a small fire broke out on the ground floor of a baker's house in Pudding Lane. In five days that small fire would devastate the third largest city in the Western world.

Adrian Tinniswood is a historian, teacher and writer, as well as a consultant to the National Trust. Adrian joins Dan to explore the cataclysm and consequences of the Great Fire of London. Together, they piece together the story of the Fire and its aftermath - the panic, the search for scapegoats, and the rebirth of a city.

This episode was produced by Hannah Ward, the audio editor was Dougal Patmore.

If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe to History Hit today!

To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

Located just 100 miles off the coast of mainland China, the nation of Taiwan sits in the so-called 'first island chain' - a group of US-friendly territories deemed crucial to American foreign policy.

Yet China's president Xi Jinping maintains that Chinese reunification with Taiwan must be fulfilled. He's not ruled out the possible use of military force - and neither has US president Joe Biden. Tensions have grown even in the last few weeks, so to what extent can tensions over Taiwan be compared to those between Russia and Ukraine?

In this episode, James Rogers from History Hit's Warfare podcast is joined by Samir Puri, Senior Fellow in Urban Security and Hybrid Warfare at the International Institute for Strategic Studies based in Singapore, to take a deep dive into the history between China & Taiwan and answer the question: could Taiwan really become China's Ukraine?

Produced by Sophie Gee and Aidan Lonergan. Edited by Aidan Lonergan.

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